Ready!!

As I sat in my room on this peaceful Sunday afternoon, finishing up a pint of rocky road ice cream. I thought about how grateful I am for so many things. Mainly my life and my family. I begin to think about what could I blog about that would be meaningful to the readers and the subject “Ready” came to mind. Ready for what? Ready to move ahead. Why? Because it’s time. Make no mistake, the pandemic came to rearrange, reinvent, reroute, and redirect everyone in the world lives. According to some statistics it has been reported that COVID has affected 188 countries out of the 195 countries in the world. That’s an overwhelming amount of evidence to make a case for my belief that there’s a message in this madness.

You can count on the message being different for each individual as this pandemic continues or draws to an end. Some will remain who they have always been, while others will change for the better or worse. The good news and the bad news of it, you get to choose your individual fate. I don’t know about anyone else, but I realized through this pandemic that I could continue pining over a life I imagined or live the life I was afforded. I have chosen to live the one I was afforded. How many of us had other things in mind when we look at our lives we are currently living? Perhaps you thought you would be married by now? Perhaps you felt you would have had your first child? A different career path? Financially sounder? Degree attained? A vision made reality? Whatever it is that you did not accomplish, or have yet to, should not stop you from moving forward to a reality that is achievable with what you have available to you at this current time. So again, I say or ask, READY? Are you Ready?

Ready to rearrange, reinvent, reroute, and redirect? Some may be thinking, is this coming from the person that’s married with children and seemingly doing well with the life she has. My answer is “YES”, And the key word is, “seemingly”. I have tons of regrets and disappointments when I look back on things I could have and should have accomplished. Due to procrastination and lack of dedication I can look back at several missed opportunities that I was afforded but I allowed to pass me by. After graduating from high school, I was fortunate to get a job at American General in which I started the day after graduation. I was still living at home and most definitely could have gone back to school and pursued a career in court reporting. Instead, I went with the opportunity presented opposed to finding a way to go after the career of my choice. I believe now God would have directed my path as to how to go about pursuing that dream. Nevertheless, I did well at American General, but I continue to put off going to school and pursuing other opportunities that I had been afforded. Looking back now, I regret those things greatly. American General had a program in which they reimbursed you for your education at 100% as long as you had passing grades. I could have become a doctor or any career I could have imagined and they would have paid for it. I slept on that opportunity, and missed the boat. How devastatingly regrettable is that right now when I think about that huge opportunity missed. You see how important it is to live in the moment, otherwise the moment passes you by. Now, at fifty years old, I understand so much that I took for granted before. Not only the importance but the urgency of taking advantage of opportunities right in front of you.

Within the last month I completed two of my life insurance industry courses that will lead to me obtaining an insurance designation. I’m very excited, but I’m also willing to admit that this is something that has been offered and available to me for the last thirty-two years of my insurance career. These industry exams are fully reimbursed by most insurance companies upon passing as a part of continuing education and advancement in the workplace. It wasn’t until 2018 that I begin to make a concerted effort to take advantage of this benefit that had been so graciously given to me for years now. In 2019, I fell back into my old routine. This year, I decided, “I’m ready!”. Ready to move ahead and get things done. I have successfully completed three of the five courses needed for my designation, leaving me with two remaining courses that I intend to complete with the help of the Lord before the end of the year.

Why? Because it’s time. This year has not only given me extended time to decompress and rearrange and reroute my thinking and my choices. If this year has taught me/us anything, it should have made the parable of the talents come alive in us. To those that are not familiar with the parable, here’s a brief synopsis: A man that was travelling into a far country called three of his servants and delivered one five talents, another two, and another one. He distributed them according to what he felt they could handle. The one with the five, doubled his talents as did the one with the two. The one he gave the one talent to went and buried his talent and did nothing with it. Therefore, when the master return and found that the servants with the five and two had doubled their talents. He rewarded them and called them good and faithful servants. The master took that one talent from the servant that buried it and made excuses and gave it to the one with the five. He called him a wicked and slothful servant and cast him out into outer darkness where they would be weeping and gnashing of teeth. The moral of the parable is to recognize that God has given us all something to work with, it is up to us to be good stewards with what he has given us.

I hope this blog encourages someone to use whatever is in your hand now! Don’t put off another day what you have available at your disposal today. Why stop when you’re so close to accomplishing what’s right in your reach. Tomorrow is not promise. Live without regrets of should of, could of, would of. Be diligent and purposeful in your actions and decisions. Seize the moment before you. I speak to any person that is waiting for your future spouse, an unborn child, a dream career, a vision not yet a reality, or whatever you are desiring to have or accomplish. Make sure that you are being your best version of yourself in this current moment. I write these things as if I’m writing a note to my younger self. These are the things that would have cause me to be so much further along without so many regrets of things I could have done differently. Although God orders our steps and things work out for the good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. I can attest that there were some things that I forfeited and allowed to pass me by due to my own procrastination, slothfulness, and ultimately the “getting around to it” mentality. You live and you learn. Most importantly, you live to help someone else not make the mistake you found yourself making.

Take some time over a cup of tea and decide is there something that you can be doing right now that you have put off long enough. Is there a goal that you are on the verge of completing? Are their opportunities in your reach you are overlooking or forfeiting? Is there anything that you are not doing because you are pining after “your life imagined”, oppose to living the life you have been afforded? Are you the servant that buried your one talent? Or will you be like the other two servants that double their talents? Will you wake up to missed opportunities? Or will you finish strong? Will you look back on a life full of regrets? Or will you have an awesome story or comeback? If you find yourself in this blog, I pray that God affords you the grace and strength to be the best version you can possibly be at this present moment. If you know someone that is struggling in this area, please share. It is my prayer that he will give us all the mindset to be “READY” for the next level and dimensions that God has for in store for us.

Until next time…. Be good to yourselves